down Watson's grade one night pretty free, when the expressman turns to
me and sez, 'There's a row inside, and you'd better pull up!' I pulls
up, and out hops, first a woman, and then two or three chaps swearing
and cursin', and tryin' to drag some one arter them. Then it 'pear'd,
Tommy, thet it was this woman's drunken husband they was going to put
out for abusin' her, and strikin' her in the coach; and if it hadn't
been for me, my boy, they'd hev left that chap thar in the road. But I
fixes matters up by putting her alongside o' me on the box, and we drove
on. She was very white, Tommy,--for the matter o' that, she was always
one o' these very white women, that never got red in the face,--but she
never cried a whimper. Most wimin would have cried. It was queer, but
she never cried. I thought so at the time.
"She was very tall, with a lot o' light hair meandering down the back of
her head, as long as a deer-skin whip-lash, and about the color. She hed
eyes thet'd bore you through at fifty yards, and pooty hands and feet.
And when she kinder got out o' that stiff, narvous state she was in, and
warmed up a little, and got chipper, by G-d, sir, she was handsome,--she
was that!"
A little flushed and embarrassed at his own enthusiasm, he stopped, and
then said, carelessly, "They got off at Murphy's."
"Well," said Islington.
"Well, I used to see her often arter thet, and when she was alone she
allus took the box-seat. She kinder confided her troubles to me, how her
husband got drunk and abused her; and I didn't see much o' him, for
he was away in 'Frisco arter thet. But it was all square, Tommy,--all
square 'twixt me and her.
"I got a going there a good deal, and then one day I sez to myself,
'Bill, this won't do,' and I got changed to another route. Did you ever
know Jackson Filltree, Tommy?" said Bill, breaking off suddenly.
"No."
"Might have heerd of him, p'r'aps?"
"No," said Islington, impatiently.
"Jackson Filltree ran the express from White's out to Summit, 'cross the
North Fork of the Yuba. One day he sez to me, 'Bill, that's a mighty bad
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